Evidence of coral bleaching on Barrier Reef as sea warms

on 01 March 2016.

Sydney: Scientists on Tuesday warned coral bleaching was occurring on the Great Barrier Reef as sea temperatures warm, and it could rapidly accelerate unless cooler conditions blow in over the next few weeks.

Authorities cautioned last year that the world faced a mass global coral bleaching event driven by the warming effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies said it was a growing concern.

Another reason to worry about Antarctica’s ice

on 24 February 2016.

In the past two years, major scientific developments have suggested that all of our eyes should be on a place that only a tiny fraction of us will ever visit — Antarctica, the frozen South Pole continent that’s larger than the continental United States and contains the majority of the planet’s land-based ice.

In 2014, scientists revealed that key parts of remote West Antarctica may have been destabilised by warm ocean waters reaching the bases of vast submarine glaciers and melting them from below. West Antarctica, as a whole, contains nearly 3.3 metres of potential sea level rise. And last year, research hinted that a similar vulnerability may exist for the truly gigantic Totten Glacier of East Antarctica.

Find solutions to climate change, energy crisis

on 22 February 2016.

Citing global problems of climate change, energy crisis and deadly diseases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asked Indian students to take up the challenge of finding solutions to these through innovation and research instead of merely doing “cut-paste” work.

Addressing the convocation ceremony of the Benares Hindu University (BHU) here, he asked students to “keep the mind receptive and eager to fresh knowledge” even after their formal education was complete.

Climate change politics is blinding us to the devastating effects of dirty air

on 21 February 2016.

It is the greatest environmental hazard of the age. Nothing focuses our concern for the future more, divides rich and poor, exercises science, business, politicians, old and young. It is an existential threat, a generational battle. All political and financial resources must be concentrated on stopping climate change.

But now that governments have signed up to the unambitious Paris climate agreement and pledged to try to limit greenhouse gas emissions, we must ask whether we have lost sight of everything else. Is the environment just about carbon and parts per million of gases in the atmosphere? What about the environment that we can smell, see and touch today?